Blood Traitors, Sluggy and 'Psycho Tommy'
by hpkiwi
Summary: As the final battle spills into the Great Hall, Horace Slughorn decides enough is enough and vows to battle his old pupil personally. However, he might have a helping hand of sorts from a wily Poltergeist. Ginny meanwhile has a nasty run-in with the killer of Remus Lupin and her uncles, Antonin Dolohov.


_A/N: I recently saw a headcanon about what would happen if Voldemort and Peeves crossed paths during the Battle of Hogwarts. It was so hilarious, I may or may not have written a fic just to include that scenario. Some of that text isn't exactly original, but the rest is mine. Enjoy following Ginny and Horace Slughorn around the Great Hall during the final battle, including the moment the wily old Potions Master decides enough is enough with his old pupil's reign of terror.  
_

For Horace Slughorn, one thing was becoming unescapably clear.

He would have to battle his old, former favourite pupil.

The thought filled him with immense sadness, but it was nothing compared to the pain of losing other old favourites along the way because of Tom. Lily and Regulus.

And, of course, Harry.

The grief pierced him like a physical wound, causing him to almost lose his breath entirely. Then there were those favourite pupils whom Tom – Voldemort – hadn't killed, but had caused unspeakable agony for.

Frank and Alice Longbottom.

Andromeda Tonks, who by now had endured her husband, her daughter and her son-in-law being cruelly stripped from her.

Molly Prewett, whom he'd witnessed bent over her son's body in a near-foetal position. Frozen to the spot in grief.

Young Miss Weasley, whose grief right now was surely unmeasurable. He didn't know the details of just what had happened in the past between her and his old favourite pupil (or a _part of him_), but what little he had picked up on was far, far too much.

The idea was now unavoidable, as the battle recommenced with full vigour. He could never hope to match the sheer, brilliant bravery of young Mr. Longbottom (another pupil he'd criminally underrated in his many decades of teaching), slicing the head off the giant snake, but one thing was now clear.

Being in Slytherin was not a shield. Regulus had proven that. Bringing reinforcements from Hogsmeade, necessary though they were, was not enough either. How could it ever be?

No more of _his_ pupils, no more of _his_ beloved school, the fabric of his very existence, would be destroyed.

He had started his pupil down this path of terror. Now it was his responsibility to end this.

"Come on!" he bellowed, waving the dozens of accumulated fresh fighters into the furious melee that had erupted in the Great Hall.

Then he rushed through the front door himself, with a speed that did nothing to betray his late octogenarian vintage. It was only a matter of time before he caught up with his quarry.

….

Ginny knew she'd screamed her lungs out minutes before. She knew that the world had stopped spinning on its axis, that all was lost.

But from the moment Neville broke free of Voldemort's spell, from the moment the vile monster's snake fell to the ground, headless, none of it mattered.

Her ears ringing with the sound of her blood pumping, almost blinded by the flashes of scarlet, silver and green, she launched into the fray with vigour.

Miraculously, they all seemed to be having an effect. Death Eaters were falling everywhere she saw – stabbed in the legs by elves, punched in the face by Dean, thrown against walls by Hagrid, trampled by Centaurs….

Though she felled one Death Eater with a well-paced Stunner, she was on the lookout for a few specific targets herself, but that would have to wait. She had to check that her other family members and Hermione, Luna and Neville were all still fighting, that they didn't need assistance…

"_Tarantallegra!"_ came a nasally, malicious voice from behind her back, and Ginny's balance was stripped from her in an instant. She landed painfully on her tailbone, her legs wracked with violent, erratic spasms.

"Finite!_" _she yelled, regaining control of her legs. She rolled around and got to her feet to face her challenger.

Antonin Dolohov. The murderer of her uncles, Remus Lupin and likely many, many more innocent people. Freshly recovered from Flitwick's jinx and with a presumably stolen wand pointed at her heart.

He slashed the wand back, and a stream of purple flames erupted from it. Her Shield Charm was almost too late; she felt a searing pain between her ribs, as though a blade had been inserted between them. Gasping, she sank to the floor. What had killed Lupin had almost got the better of her.

"Incarcerous!" she cried, but Dolohov lazily flicked his wand; she would have to do better than that.

"Incendio!" The end of Dolohov's cloak caught fire; cursing, he stomped on it, and shot off a Killing Curse that was easily dodged. She shakily got back to her feet, but determined to win against this hideous individual.

"What's the matter?" Dolohov jeered, his twisted face frozen in a mocking smile. "Little worse for wear? Never mind, at least you're not yet like that hideous beast that you call a Professor, or that pathetic boyfriend of yours."

The sight of Harry, motionless, limbs flopping like a rag-doll, came swimming to the forefront of her mind. And of Fred, Tonks and Lupin. Dolohov, Bellatrix and even Voldemort himself were plain and simply _finished_, as far as she was concerned. She could process the grief once all was said and done – or die trying.

"Shame. You could have done so much better than him – being a pretty little Blood-Traitor bi-"

"SECTUMSEMPRA!" she bellowed, and her aim was true.

Dolohov let out a high-pitched yelp as a deep laceration opened up across his wrist. His grip useless, Dolohov's wand clattered to the floor as drops of blood splattered the cobblestones. With only a distant, detached feeling of shock and shame at her effective use of Dark Magic, Ginny stepped coldly over his whimpering, crumpled form as she came across a sight that made her freeze momentarily with horror.

Hermione, disarmed, and totally at Bellatrix's mercy.

"LUNA!" she cried, spotting with sweet, sweet relief in an instant the dirty-blonde crop of hair in amongst the growing pile of black-cloaked, defeated Death Eaters. As one, they rushed to assist their friend.

…..

With horror, Horace saw one of his sixth-year students - Ellie McDougall, a Hufflepuff, fall to the ground as a jet of green from Voldemort himself hit her.

"Pomona!" he cried out as he hurried over to the fallen girl. He never knew afterwards what made him do it - such a curse, after all was instantaneously lethal. It might have been pure wishful thinking. But as he bent over the girl's prone form, and tentatively brushed her neck for a pulse, he found one. Weak, but continuous. Reliable.

"Horace!" Pomona had caught up to them both. "Oh, _Ellie!"_

Shaking his head in disbelief, Horace pulled out his wand, and pointed it directly at the fallen girl's heart. "Reenervate."

There was a gasp from Pomona as the girl let out a moan, shakily getting to her feet.

"We still fighting?" she asked groggily. "Chest hurts like hell."

"Yes we, are, Miss McDougall," Horace informed her gently, as though a louder voice might cause this miraculous survival to fall to pieces. "Pomona, can you take her to a safe spot in the Hall?"

"Certainly," sighed Pomona, brushing away a stray tear as she put an arm around her recovered pupil's back. Her shocked eyes met Horace's briefly, and Horace knew the same question was reflected back at her in his own gaze.

_How on earth are people surviving Killing Curses?_

Sighing at the dust and holes that had accumulated in his robes as a result of the fighting and running, he set his eyes once more on where Tom was.

….

That endeavor was not particularly difficult, as the individual in question was having small chunks of rubble pelt his bald, paled head, courtesy of the Castle's resident Poltergeist. Every time Voldemort screamed an order, increasingly desperately, Peeves would interrupt it with a loud raspberry.

"KILL EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM!" screamed Voldemort, his scarlet eyes flashing as he attempted to ignore the impromptu missiles. "KILL THEM ALL!

"Ooooh look," cackled Peeves, clearly enjoying the sport and bobbing mere feet from Voldemort. "Little Tom-Tom's getting aaangry! Psycho Tommy! Conquered the world yet? I guess NOT!"

With an inarticulate cry of rage, Voldemort turned his wand on the marauding Poltergeist. "Silencio!"

The charm had no effect, as the Poltergeist burst into song.

_There once was a young man called Tommy_

_Who was also a murderous knobbie_

_He killed a girl named Myrtle_

_Oh, now that was quite hurtful…._

_He now calls himself Voldy_

_Though his feet are now quite mouldy_

_But to us he'll always be_

_Our little psycho Tommy!_

With another scream, Voldemort fired off several Killing Curses at the Poltergeist; he dodged them all, cackling as he gave Voldemort an obscene hand gesture.

"Kill him!" Voldemort demanded of no-one in particular; his severely depleted band of Death Eaters were fighting other targets, after all.

One Death Eater turned.

"My Lord?"

"Kill that _thing!"_

"My Lord, he's a Poltergeist, he can't be…"

Voldemort swiped the wand down, and blinding green light shot out of it as the man keeled over.

At this, Peeves burst into song again.

_There once was an evil man called Tommy_

_Who had a thing for our young Potty…_

But Voldemort's concentration was broken, as was Horace's, when a massive crashing sound alerted him to Fenrir Greyback being propelled out of a window by two curses from Ron Weasley and Neville Longbottom. He also saw the Centaur Bane, trampling over a Death Eater and breaking the man's back as if it were matchsticks.

It was now or never. He ran at Tom, now so hideously transformed, flourishing his wand as a jet of red shot out of it….

As Voldemort turned to face his challenger, blocking the spell easily, his face registered total shock.

"_Professor Slughorn! _My goodness, I do rather wish we'd reacquainted another way."

"Stand down, Tom," Horace sighed as he did his best to ignore the anguished cry of Lucius Malfoy, screaming out Draco's name; he was heartily _sick_ of this entire bloody war. "Your men and women are all dying or being defeated. But for _what_, Tom?"

"So much for Professional courtesy," jeered Voldemort, his nostrils flaring as he tightened the grip on his wand. "Why, I spared you so many times, invited you to join me… I never should have bothered. Too _weak_, just like that silly boy and his puppetmaster…."

Horace whirled his wand around his head, creating a rope of fire which struck out at Voldemort; the latter blasted it to smoke and shot a Killing Curse that missed him by an inch.

"If you won't join me," taunted Voldemort, his snake-like nostril slits unpleasantly flared, "kill me!"

Horace tightened his grip on his wand. He could do this, he really could. He opened his mouth, tried to say the words, tried to summon up every molecule of corrosive hatred towards this individual.

"Avada….Crucio…" he stammered. "S…Stupefy!" But Voldemort waved his arm, and Horace's wand was torn from his grasp.

"As I expected…._Too weak."_

HORACE!"

Voldemort turned to face Minerva McGonagall's anguished cry, and Horace dived for his wand, scooping it up, and firing a sizzling bolt of electrical energy at Voldemort's head. With a whirl of his cloak, Voldemort Disapparated, and Horace's silver curse hit the opposite wall with a muffled boom sending dust tumbling from all sides of the Great Hall.

Doing his best to ignore the stich eating away at his side, Horace turned just in time to duck below a set of orange glowing spheres fired from Voldemort's wand. They ricocheted against the wall behind Horace, and shot back towards him, bouncing along the cobblestones like some sickening version of a Muggle ball, leaving charred craters in their wake. Horace Vanished the spheres and hastily produced a silver shield to block Voldemort's next attack – a streak of purple flames, which produced a most unearthly, eerie, reverberation against the shield.

"No matter what you say or do now, Professor," Voldemort called out, "I will be forever in your debt for the information you imparted to my sixteen-year-old self. _Most useful_, which is why your death will be painless."

Horace shook his head regretfully as Voldemort kept shooting various curses at his shield. His own memories, the one thing that he never could outrun, even during his transient lifestyle while in hiding two years beforehand.

With a sudden roar of wind, Voldemort was briefly knocked off balance as Minerva rushed to his aid.

"Keep fighting, Horace!" she encouraged him. "It's now just him and one or two others."

As Kingsley Shacklebolt joined in the battle, firing off a Freezing Curse that coated the windowsill behind Voldemort with metre-long icicles, and as Voldemort's jeer turned into a mask of fury, Horace risked the briefest of glances to his right. Sure enough, only Bellatrix Lestrange among Voldemort's followers remained - fighting young Miss Weasley, Miss Granger and Miss Lovegood…but he had to watch out for his other two allies. He swiped and slashed furiously, ducking as vigorously as a man of his age, weight and fitness could. He deployed fire, Stunning Spells, Disintegration Curses, Reductor Curses and more, but he could feel his energy steadily weakening. He was an old man, a skilled wizard, yes, but not a dueller.

Then, with an almighty, deafening animal roar from his opponent, it was all over. He felt the air in front of him ripple, then he was thrown clean off his feet by the shockwave. He slammed into something unyielding, and then he felt sharp, shooting pains up his back. All fell deathly quiet as he felt himself sliding….falling….

"Horace…..HORACE!"

The lined, pale face of Minerva McGonagall flashed before his eyes in an instant, then it faded away again. Horace wanted nothing better to sleep, to dream of unhealthily sugary late night snacks in his pyjamas…

"Minerva…" he mumbled incoherently.

"Horace! The boy….the boy….Look!" Horace blearily opened his eyes, and saw, very much alive, Harry Potter himself. Standing alone in front of the Dark Lord, wand at the ready.

This was an illusion. He'd died and this was now a figment of his afterlife fantasy, surely?

But Horace strained to hear the boy's words. He was talking to Voldemort ever-so calmly, and Horace felt tears spring to his eyes as Harry mentioned destroyed Horcruxes, of Severus Snape's love for Lily…..he let out a whimper as Voldemort mentioned stamping out Lily like a cockroach.

So another of his talented pupils - Severus – was now dead, and had proven to be braver than almost anyone he'd ever known. Horace wanted to shout out a warning to Harry, to the Boy Who Lived - again - , but from the way Harry's eyes remained calmly locked with Voldemort's, while Voldemort appeared to become more and more rattled with every revelation, he didn't have to worry.

When had the boy realised the truth about Horcruxes? He had a suspicion that in his inebriated state at Hagrid's, he might have let a few inconvenient truths slip out, but his memories of that night were hazy.

When the moment came, it was almost anticlimactic. Voldemort – Tom - screamed his last curse, then fell to the floor as though a discarded child's toy. Horace watched with detached joy, shock and tears of gratitude as Harry was mobbed by the crowd, as Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger tentatively embraced each other and sat down beside the large Weasley brood, watched as Arthur embraced his children. Yet another individual he'd so mightily underestimated…...

The morning ended, somehow, with him slumped against an open window beside Rubeus Hagrid, who promised him a large tankard of 'medicinal' brandy after the cleanup was finished while Grawp, ignoring the many lacerations from the battle, happily accepted offers of thrown food into his mouth.

He had to barely stifle a chuckle as a scowling Argus Filch stalked past him to begin cleaning up the rubble in the Entrance Hall with nothing but a broom and Mrs. Norris to assist him.

Life really was ironic. The thing he'd so dreaded - Dumbledore approaching him with another honeyed trap of employment at Hogwarts – had been the very best thing to happen to him. He'd finally confronted his decades-old demons, and won.

All would be well.

…..

For Ginny, the entirely morning passed as though it were a mere figment of her imagination, another dream. Crushing grief, sweet, sweet relief, fatigue….all in equal measure. Yes, she'd joined in the mob collectively hugging Harry and she, Harry, Ron and Hermione had exchanged some brief words, but the miracle still didn't feel real.

Not until she started to drift off in Harry's arms many hours later in the Gryffindor Common Room would she even begin to feel like she was adapting to the new normal…..whatever _that_ was.

By no means were things right with the world. Some of her dearest friends, like Colin, Tonks and Remus Lupin, had been cruelly struck down. Her own brother lay amongst the dead several floors below her, perpetually frozen in his final laugh.

Things were not yet right.

Bu with the rest of her family, Harry, Hermione, Neville and Luna beside her, they would be.

And in good time, all was well.


End file.
